Glossary
Other Technical Dictionaries/Glossaries
Acronym Glossary CNET Internet Glossary ILC Glossary of Internet Terms OneLook Dictionaries
Object A result of any Windows application, such as a block of text, all or part of a graphic image, or a sound clip.
Object linking and embedding See OLE.
Object program A machine-level program that results from the compilation of a source program. (Compare with source program.)
Object-oriented language A programming language structured to enable the interaction between user-defined concepts that contain data and operations to be performed on the data.
Object-oriented programming (OOP) A form of software development in which programs are built with entities called objects, which model any physical or conceptual item. Objects are linked together in a top-down hierarchy.
OCR See optical character recognition.
OCR scanner A light-sensitive input device that bounces a beam of light off an image to interpret printed characters or symbols.
Off-line Pertaining to data that are not accessible by, or hardware devices that are not connected to, a computer system. (Contrast with online.)
OLE[object linking and embedding] The software capability that enables the creation a compound document that contains one or more objects from other applications. Objects can be linked or embedded.
Online Pertaining to data and/or hardware devices accessible to and under the control of a computer system. (Contrast with off-line.)
Online document Documents that are designed to be retrieved from secondary storage (locally or over a network) and viewed on a monitor. (same as electronic document).
Online service A commercial information network that provides remote users with access to a variety of information services.
Online thesaurus Software that enables a user to request synonyms interactively during a word processing session.
Open application A running application.
Open architecture Refers to micros that give users the flexibility to configure the system with a variety of peripheral devices.
Operating system The software that controls the execution of all applications and system software programs.
Optical character recognition (OCR) A data entry technique that permits original-source data entry. Coded symbols or characters are scanned to retrieve the data.
Optical laser disk A secondary storage medium that uses laser technology to score the surface of a disk to represent a bit.
OS/2 A multitasking PC operating system.
Output Data transferred from RAM to an output device for processing.